conducting those negotiations, which ended in obtaining Canada and peace. The consequences amply sustained the views of Franklin, and fully vindicated his sagacity, in everything, except the justice and moderation of the British government; and that single exception could not have been made, had George Grenville, Lord North, and their respective colleagues, manifested, in subsequent years, half the true statesmanship of the provincial agent of Pennsylvania.

At length, in June, 1760, the cause committed to Franklin's charge by the Assembly of Pennsylvania, was argued before the board of trade. The particular case on which the argument was had, was an act of the Assembly, duly signed by Governor Denny, entitled, "An act for granting to his majesty the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, striking the same in bills of credit, and sinking the bills by a tax on all estates real and personal." This included, of course, the Proprietary estates; and though the decision of the board required some few formal amendments of the act, for the sake of greater precision in some of its details, yet, on the great point, it was explicit, that the estates of the Proprietaries ought to be assessed and taxed in the same manner and to the same extent as all other estates in the province.

Though the hearing took place in June, yet the report of the whole matter, with the decision thereon by the board, to the privy council, together with other formalities appertaining to it, detained Franklin in London, as he remarks in a subsequent letter to Lord Kames, until the middle of September.

Although the leading object of Franklin's mission to England was now accomplished, yet other affairs of the province kept him still in that country; and during a short period of leisure following the attainment of the object mentioned, he made another excursion, with his

TOUR IN WALES AND WEST OF ENGLAND.

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son, to the northern parts of the kingdom, taking a route somewhat west of his former one to Scotland, and returning through Wales. Writing at Coventry, under date of the 27th of September, to Lord Kames, he states that he had intended, when the excursion was originally planned, in the preceding summer, to cross over to Ireland, and having made the tour of that island, pass from one of its northern ports into the southwest of Scotland, and so make a circuit to Edinburgh, for the sake of once more seeing his friends in that neighborhood; but that the litigation with the Proprietary had delayed him so long in London, as already stated, that he was obliged to relinquish the more important part of his design.

In a letter to David Hume, of the same date, Franklin expresses the gratification it had given him to learn that Mr. Hume's opinions concerning America had recently become more favorable than they had been; for, says he, "I think it of importance to our general welfare, that the people of this nation should have right notions of us; and I know of no one who has it more in his power to rectify those notions, than Mr. Hume." That distinguished writer had then recently put forth his able Essay on the Jealousy of Commerce; and Franklin, in the same letter, expresses the pleasure it had given him, particularly for the following reason: "I think," says Franklin, “it can not but have a good effect in promoting a certain interest, too little thought of by selfish man, and scarcely ever mentioned, so that we hardly have a name for it: I mean the interest of humanity, or the common good of mankind. But I hope, particularly from that essay, an abatement of the jealousy, that reigns here, of the commerce of the colonies."

The change in some of Mr. Hume's sentiments relating to America, as mentioned above, had been produced, in great part at least, by the Canada Pamphlet,

which Franklin had sent him; and it seems, from the letter already cited, that Mr. Hume, in another referring to it, had, with the frankness of friendship, criticised. some of the expressions employed in the pamphlet. Among these were the words pejorate, colonize, and unshakable. After thanking his friend for his admonition, and saying that he should give up the words, for the reason that they were not recognised by usage, he admits the position that new words should not be coined, when there are already old ones sufficiently expressive; but he adds the wish that usage would give a readier sanction to new terms, formed by compounding such as already belong to the language and are universally understood; and he refers to the German, as well as the Latin and Greek, to sanction the practice; remarking, that words compounded of such as are already familiar, would be better than any that could be borrowed from other tongues, inasmuch as their full meaning would be instantly and completely apprehended.

Much of this we believe to be sound doctrine, if cautiously applied. Still, Franklin's modesty, or courtesy, led him, we think, to defer to Mr. Hume's authority somewhat beyond the true rule. Not that we would ask the mint-stamp on pejorate; for, to cite but one example, having deteriorate, the other seems needless, though equally legitimate in its formation, each being originally derived from the comparative degree of a Latin adjective, the old word through the French, the other directly from its Roman primitive. As to colonize, however, it is not only in common and unquestioned use, in these days, by the best writers, but it was so, long before the year 1760; probably as long before as the condition and political relations of communities called colonies were understood by Englishmen, or the planting of them was the subject of discourse in the English language;

and in its vocabulary there is not a word more regular and legitimate, in form or use.

We do not intend to enter, here, into a philological dissertation; but it may be allowable to remark, that, when the progress of knowledge and of society produces new facts and truths, or new institutions, then the very design and end of all language demand new words to express the new ideas, and to discourse with clearness and precision concerning the new subjects of thought. In this way it is that the vocabularies of all tongues have been extended; and all that sound principle requires is, that the new terms shall be formed in accordance with the established laws of the language to which they are added. Even when subjects of thought, not essentially and strictly new, are placed in unusual relations, and new terms, if not absolutely indispensable, become desirable, for the more exact, forcible, or graceful expression of the ideas suggested by the varied aspects of the subject, the languages of all civilized nations have freely admitted them, not from caprice, nor even for convenience alone, nor only for the yet higher purpose of giving style new attractions by giving it a more varied power of expression, or an easier flow, but also as being both the instruments and proofs of greater accuracy of thought and increasing intellectual culture; and this augmentation of the means of communicating ideas is one of the processes, perhaps the most efficient one, by which the civilization and refinement of nations are advanced.

During his residence in London, though he was unable to give any systematic attention to philosophical studies, yet he availed himself of occasional opportunities furnished by the delay of his business, to perform an experiment, or attend a meeting of professed cultivators of science, or write to a correspondent on some topic of his favorite pursuit. In June of 1758, he addressed such a

letter to John Lining, of Charleston, South Carolina, a correspondent of that class, on the cooling of the surfaces of bodies by evaporation. This topic had been started before Franklin left home on his present mission; and in the letter now mentioned, he relates an experiment he had recently exhibited at Cambridge, in conjunction with Professor Hadley, of the university there, in which, by successive wettings of the glass bulb of a thermometer with ether, and permitting each wetting to evaporate, as it rapidly did, being aided by blowing on the bulb with a pair of bellows, the mercury in the tube was sent down twenty-five degrees below freezing point, and ice. nearly a fourth of an inch thick, was formed on the bulb, "From this experiment," says Franklin, one may see the possibility of freezing a man to death, on a warm summer-day, if he were to stand in a passage, through which the wind blew briskly, and were wet frequently with ether, a spirit more inflammable than brandy, or common spirits of wine."

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The principle thus demonstrated Franklin applies, as his habit was, to various cases of practical importance. Many a person has received great injury to his health, from seeking, when much heated and wet with perspiration, to refresh himself in such a passage, by having his body too rapidly cooled down by evaporation from its surface. On the other hand, by this same law of nature, the husbandman, while gathering his harvests in the field under a burning sun, is protected from a heat that would overpower him, if it were not carried off by evaporation from his perspiring body. On the same principle, water, milk, butter, or anything else, may be cooled in vessels wrapped with cloths, wetted often enough to keep up an active evaporation; and so, too, local inflammation on the human body, whether occasioned by bruises, boils, or other hot tumors, may be cooled, and pain diminished,